On the Road to a Free Labor Market

Abstract

The antitotalitarian revolution, the culminating point of which was the events between the August putsch and Gorbachev's retirement, directly affected the sphere of labor relations and employment. The ouster of the CPSU from its leading role in society and the USSR's lightning-fast disintegration have made the future of tens of thousands of party bureaucrats [apparatchiki] who faithfully served the disintegrating system uncertain. The severance of traditional economic ties among regions, branches, and enterprises is resulting in cutbacks in production and in the closing down of enterprises. The liberalization of prices that has been initiated has not yet succeeded in balancing the market and saturating it with the goods people need in their everyday life. Even though there is still a glimmer of production in the heart of enterprises and workers are quite conscientious about going to work, real wages are declining further and further, and no manner of indexing can maintain the already semipenurious living standard of the "silent majority," Social distribution [sotsial'nye razdachi] is acquiring an ever larger scale. Even though the printing press is operating at full capacity, there is not even enough money to meet the payroll on time. People's employment is threatened not only by real market reforms that are to be based on privatization but also by the bankruptcy of the state, which has not been able to feed all its workers.